


Byegone

by ClaraxBarton



Series: Kinktober2019 [10]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bonds, F/F, F/M, Kinktober, M/M, Magic, Witches, coven - Freeform, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 12:03:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20975609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: Clint Barton wasn't normal, but then, what else was new?





	Byegone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shatteredhourglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatteredhourglass/gifts).

> Fuck me but I have to run - this week is crazy but I am NOT giving up on doing all the kinktober things so... here is a too short Bond fic!
> 
> Now beta read by the amazing Ro!

At twenty-six Clint was the only unBonded witch in his coven.

And sure, not  _ everyone _ found a Bond when they were still a teenager. Not everyone came into their full power during late adolescence and then  _ immediately _ found their Bond. Sometimes it took a few years. Hell, Clint’s coven leader hadn’t found her Bond until she was twenty-one.

One of the witches in the coven knew a witch who knew a witch who hadn’t found his Bond until he was twenty-five.

But twenty-six, almost twenty-seven, too close to thirty for anyone to feel comfortable with an unBonded witch around?

It wasn’t good.

And maybe it wouldn’t have mattered so much, if Clint had been less powerful, had been less brash, less prone to pick fights when he didn’t like the way things were going, less visible, less of a reminder of the previous coven leader’s failings, just… less.

But as much as Clint tried to make himself invisible, tried to not draw attention to himself when the coven met and tried to keep his mouth shut unless he absolutely had to speak up and point out how wrong or stupid people were being - was it really his fault that humans, especially the ones around him, tended to be wrong and stupid more often than not? - as much as he  _ tried _ to do all of that, there was no controlling his power.

His power didn’t have any interest in being side-lined, not unbound and unBonded and free as it was.

It had scared his brother, Barney, whose power was a quiet, settled well that ran deep and dark but that he rarely used, that his Bond helped him keep still. Clint’s power, the way it surged about him, the way he came into it at the age of eight, way too young, the way it curled around him and lashed out when he did - it was all part of why Barney had left him, had hooked up with the first traveling coven he could find, had found his Bond and taken off in the dead of night and left Clint behind.

Clint had wandered for a few years, had avoided trouble as best he could - which was to say he hadn’t done a good job of avoiding it at all - until Carol found his sorry ass at the age of seventeen, digging through dumpsters and sharing food between himself and the one-eyed stray dog he had picked up.

Carol had taken Clint in, had brought him into her coven and found him a home and work and Clint had… tried to settle, had tried to be still.

He hadn’t succeeded, and almost ten years later, here he was, unBonded, facing the coven. Again.

“I don’t like it,” Maria, Carol’s Bond, said, not for the first time. Her kid, bright eyed, fearless little Monica, was curled between Maria and Carol and blinking up at Clint sleepily, trying to smile encouragingly at him.

“What’s to like?” Fury snorted. “UnBonded stray with enough power to level a cornfield if he’s not paying attention. No roots. No control. No -”

“I have control,” Clint interrupted him.

Fury arched one eyebrow and, well, sure, interrupted a coven elder didn’t exactly demonstrate Clint’s control, but Clint  _ did _ have control. He hadn’t flattened a cornfield in at least four years. Maybe five.

Shit.

Except for that time last year.

So he hadn’t flattened a cornfield in over a year.

That was… some kind of control. 

“You’re getting worse,” Hill spoke up. She was Fury’s bond, also named Maria, but for the sake of everyone’s sanity, she went by Hill. Or maybe she went by Hill because she just wanted to. She wasn’t the type to really care about making things easier for other people. Especially people like Clint.

“You know what happens to unBonded witches,” Pepper spoke up, her voice soft and low where everyone else spoke as loudly as forcefully as they could.

Attention focused on Pepper, on the lines of sorrow in her face, on the small child sleeping in her arms.

Pepper knew, better than most, better than anyone really, what happened to unBonded witches.

Her Bond, her Tony, had died the previous year, and Pepper’s grief had been a cold, flowing river that made everyone shiver and share in her broken heart until her magic had found a new Bond, until it had curled deep into her own daughter and awoken  _ her _ magic more than a decade earlier than it should. It was a terrifying thing, to have a kid so young access their magic, before they could really understand it or the world or themselves. 

Pepper lived in fear, these days, fear that she kept a leash on because, well, that was the thing about a Bond. It wasn’t just a conduit for your magic, wasn’t just a way to ground one witches power in the core of another. It was a bridge for your emotions, your thoughts, your memories.

So Pepper had to keep so much of herself locked tight, kept secret and safe from her own daughter, from the world around her, and it was… devastating.

“This isn’t like Tony,” Clint had to point out, not trying to be belligerent but… you know, it wasn’t fair for her to bring that up in  _ this  _ situation. If Clint’s magic wanted a Bond the way Pepper’s had, then it would have  _ found _ one by now.

“I’m not talking about Tony,” Pepper said, still quiet, still so very controlled. “I’m talking about Bruce.”

And… well.

Fuck.

Bruce had been a witch in the coven before Clint’s time, had been twenty-four and unBonded and one night his magic had simply overwhelmed him, had been desperate for  _ more _ and tried to get free from the single body that contained it and…

And Bruce had changed, had lost his human form and grown large and furious and  _ green _ and his magic had been so wild and overwhelming that it had burned the village down around him before he’d run from the coven and his life and hadn’t been seen since. 

He had been close to Tony and Pepper, and Tony had spent years searching for him, following up on the news of any violent rampages or wild magic he could find. 

No one wanted to be a follow-up to the tragedy of Bruce Banner.

Least of all Clint.

He swallowed hard and turned away from Pepper and focused back on Carol.

“What do you want me to do?” He asked, choking on his own fear, his own tears.

He was so stupid, thinking he’d found a home.

Carol met his eyes, her gaze steady.

“Clint Barton, the coven banishes you. May you find peace and solace elsewhere. Seek to harm no-one.”

He bowed his head, accepting her judgement - it wasn’t like he really had a choice anyway.

He sucked in a deep breath, offered Monica a broken smirk, and then nodded to Carol.

“Take what you can,” she added, “and take our blessings.”

That wasn’t nothing, the blessings of Carol and Maria, two witches of incredible power in their own right and awe-inspiring in their Bond.

It wasn’t nothing, but it wasn’t… all that much, right now.

So he just nodded again, gathered his staff and his bow and his bag, and left the circle, left the village, and crept off into the night.

-o-

The thing about Clint was that he was a literal magnet for trouble.

Barney used to say it, before he left Clint. Their parents used to say it, before they died. Maria used to say it, looking between Clint and Monica with fond exasperation.

And it wasn’t really a lie.

Which was why Clint wasn’t at all surprised when, two nights after leaving the coven and stumbling through the forest, following the path along the river that, years ago, Carol had traversed with him in the opposite direction when she brought him to the coven, Clint found them.

_ Them _ being two men. Two hulking men whose power flowed around them and exploded into the world with the strength of the sun and the moon.

One man was golden - skin and hair and magic so bright and glorious and  _ warm _ that Clint could bask in it forever.

The other man was silver - cold and sharp from his jaw and cheeks to his eyes to the tendrils of magic that curled towards Clint even before the golden man knew Clint was  _ there _ .

Clint’s eyes met the silver man’s and it felt like…

It felt like the earth shook and shattered itself into a million pieces and crumbled away to nothing but stardust and -

When Clint came to, he was laying on something sharp and rough and  _ perfect _ . He curled himself closer, wrapped his arms tight, tried to pull himself into the core of  _ home _ that felt just out of his reach.

Until he heard a laugh.

Until he realized someone was holding him, until he realized he was  _ trapped _ by arms that felt like bands of steel and -

“Relax.”

The command was rumbled from the body beneath, around, surrounding Clint.

The silver man.

Clint was engulfed by him.

The golden man was some distance away, smirking, looking amused and content while Clint was… snuggled to death by the silver man.

_ Relax _ , the command was repeated, reverberating deep in Clint’s mind and his heart and his very nerve endings.

He sucked in a breathe.

_ Oh Circe’s fucking tits _ .

He had found his Bond.

-o-

  
  
  



End file.
